Casino crackdown continues in city

As part of the ongoing anti-casino crackdown, the members of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) on Tuesday seized a large amount of money and gold ornaments from the residences of two Awami League leaders and their aides in the city.

During the drive, over Tk 50 million, eight kilograms of gold ornaments and six firearms were found at the residences of two Awami League leaders-cum-casino shareholders and their close aides.

The seized money and gold are believed to be earned from illegal casino operations, RAB officials told the reporters.

Members of unit-3 of the elite force conducted the operation based on their intelligence report that Gendaria unit's Awami League leader Enamul Haque and his brother Rupon Bhuiyan recently bought five vaults in Old Dhaka.

Locals said Enamul is vice president while Rupon is joint general secretary of Gendaria unit of Awami League.

During the drive, the RAB members found three vaults at the residences of Enamul and Rupon at Banianagar in the capital's Sutrapur area where Tk 10.o5 million and 730 bhoris (1 bhori=11.664 grams) of gold were kept.

Talking to the reporters, RAB-3 commander KM Shafiullah Bulbul said Enamul was a shareholder of Wanderers Club where they found illegal casino operations earlier.

"He (Enamul) and Rupon used to bring money from the club and keep into the vaults. As the vaults do not have enough space, they bought gold with the money and kept there," he said.

The RAB senior official said they had information that Enamul owns 15 residential buildings in the capital. "We have information that Enamul went to Thailand a week ago while Rupon is absconding. We are working to get him."

For tracing more vaults, the RAB men later conducted two more raids on the houses of Enamul's friend Harun-ur-Rashid and his employee Abul Kalam Azad.

The RAB men got surprised finding too many currencies in his employee's residence at Narinda. They got tired while counting these notes. Around Tk 20 million was found in that vault.

During the third operation at Harun-ur-Rashid's house at Sharatgupta Road of Narinda, the last vault was found and another Tk 20 million recovered from the house.

However, the RAB did not find Harun, an employee of the truck stand there, during the operation.

Harun's wife told the reporters that they knew nothing about the money and Enamul set up the vault in the house few days ago.

RAB-3 commander KM Shafiullah Bulbul said they launched three operations on the day and seized an aggregate amount of over Tk 50 million and eight kilograms of gold.

"We guess the seized money is linked with the casino operation. We're further investigating the matter. We also seized six firearms with ammunition during the drives," he added.

Amid the ongoing drives, Bangladesh Bank, however, sought information on bank accounts of a number of people including ruling party lawmaker Nurunnabi Chowdhury Shawon.

A senior official at Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) of Bangladesh Bank said they sought detailed information about accounts of nearly a dozen of people from the banks and other financial institutions.

"We're keeping watch on the whole operations and seek bank-related information on the persons whose names come out of the drives," he said.

The BFIU sources said the people whose accounts-related information was sought include lawmaker Shawon's wife Farzana Chowdhury, Jubo League leader Ismail Chowdhury Samrat, former chief engineer of public works department M Rafiqul Islam, and additional engineer of the same department Abdul Hye.

Earlier, the BFIU had frozen bank accounts of detained GK Shamim, Jubo League leader Khaled Mahmud Bhuiyan and Kalabagan Krira Chakra Club president Shafiqul Alam Firoz.

Simultaneously, central intelligent cell (CIC) of National Board of Revenue (NBR) asked the central bank to freeze bank accounts of lawmaker Nurunnabi Chowdhury Shawon, his wife, Ismail Chowdhury Samrat and his wife.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Housing and Public Works made the additional chief engineer (Dhaka Zone) OSD (officer on special duty) for his alleged links with arrested GK Shamim.

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